(CHICAGO)(September 27, 2007) Republican U. S. Senate candidate Andy Martin will hold a Chicago news conference Friday, September 28th to promise that if elected he will work to eliminate bi or multilingual election materials.

“The reports today in the Daily Herald and Chicago Tribune that Kane County has caved into a Justice Department suit, and will be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to accommodate non-English speaking voters, is the kind of news that makes peoples’ blood boil,” Martin will charge.

“The issue of illegal immigration is a very contested matter and I have carefully been making my way through that maze on a case-by-case basis. Illegal immigration, however, is entirely separate from bilingual voting.

“The issue of a requirement to speak English and read English to vote should not be controversial. If you are a native-born American, then you should sue your parents and the school board if you can’t speak English. The taxpayers do not owe native-born Americans remedial instruction to vote. Linguistically challenged voters owe it to themselves to find out why they were deprived of meaningful instruction and to undertake their own program of remediation, often offered through a local school board. I strongly support and encourage such efforts.

“As for immigrants, obviously illegal immigrants should not vote. Period. There is no place for voters who are not citizens. With illegal voting, elections in California have become a shambles. That is why I think it is important to clearly separate the issue of illegal immigration from bilingual voting, because only legal citizens should be voting.

“And, while ‘citizenship has its privileges,’ to paraphrase the American Express ad, citizenship does not come with the right to stick local taxpayers with a bill for your own linguistic inadequacy.

“If you are a naturalized citizen, you are required to speak English as a condition of naturalization. Why should someone who has demonstrated a sufficient facility in English to become a citizen suddenly become ‘disabled’ when it comes time to vote? This inconsistency is created by the Department of Justice.

“I saw something in the Chicago Tribune’s story today, that inadequate English skills have now become a ‘disability,’ which confirms for me that the problem of bilingual elections must be addressed.

“There us no reason English-speaking voters in Kane County should be subsidizing participation by non English-speaking voters. None.

“English should be the language in which we conduct elections, not Spanish, not Greek, not Chinese and not Kanjobal. What may have been well-intentioned in the 1960’s has come back to bite us; we do not need to conduct elections in dozens of languages and the federal law to that effect is nonsense.

“Having condemned bilingual programs, I want to stress that I am concerned by the ‘late’ poll openings in Kane County. I am utterly opposed to any form of incompetence of harassment by election officials. Anyone who has the right to vote should have that right fully and fairly protected by local officials. I will scrupulously protect the right to vote.

“Chicago has established a worldwide reputation for corrupt elections. We must not allow that virus to spread to the suburbs, as we continue the battle to keep Chicago elections honest and above board. Kane County must provide for honest and open elections. In English.

“America welcomes new immigrants who become citizens legally, and we wholeheartedly open the polling booth to them. They have complied with the law. But English is the common language of America, and that is the only language in which elections should be conducted. Moreover, given the outrageous fraud in Chicago with ‘assistance’ to voters, we can’t let ‘voting assistance’ now spread to the suburbs.

“The bottom line: Taxpayers do not owe voters a palette of languages in which to cast their ballots,” Martin says.